This study evaluated the effectiveness of a multicomponent early literacy curriculum that included phonics and phonemic awareness in comparison to a sight word approach. A total of 93 students with severe developmental disabilities who were enrolled in Grades K through 4 were randomly assigned to either a multicomponent early literacy curriculum…

The current study developed a taxonomy of reading skills and compared this taxonomy with skills being trained in 30 commercially available software programs designed to teach emergent literacy or literacy-specific skills for children in preschool, kindergarten, and Grade 1. Outcomes suggest that, although some skills are being trained in a…

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the Sing, Spell, Read, Write (SSRW) phonics curriculum that uses explicit and systematic methods and incorporates music to teach literacy skills implemented as a tier-two reading intervention in the Response to Intervention process to meet the cultural and linguistic needs of English…

Starting from the question "what is a story?" "Storytelling Across the Primary Curriculum" leads the reader through the theory and practise of storytelling as an educational method--a method taught by the author over the last ten years through Primary English teaching programmes. This practical book gives teachers the skills and confidence to use…

This article describes the phonological awareness and English writing skills among a sample of 297 Singaporean kindergarten children, stratified by ethnicity (Chinese, Malay, and Indian), and examines the relationship between oral language and writing skills in this multilingual population. Overall, Singaporean kindergartners, nearly all of whom…

Ten first grade students, participating in a Tier II response to intervention (RTI) reading program received an intervention of video self modeling to improve decoding skills and sight word recognition. The students were video recorded blending and segmenting decodable words, and reading sight words taken directly from their curriculum…

Phonics was identified as one of the critical components in reading development by the National Reading Panel. Over time, research has repeatedly identified phonics as important to early reading development. Given the compelling evidence supporting the teaching of phonics in early reading, it is critical to make sure that instructional decisions…

Recent Australian and international government reports refer to the importance of teacher knowledge in the sound structure of language and its relationship to beginning reading. In this study, a group of 162 pre-service teachers responded to a questionnaire including questions related to their attitudes towards using phonics instruction in the…

For a number of students, early failure is highly predictive of later failure, severely limiting the development of skilled reading. Students who do not read fluently generally do not become good readers. In addition, students with inadequate fluency are likely to avoid reading because of fear of failure and negative attitudes--and students who…

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of two corrective feedback methods, word-supply and phonics-based, on the oral reading fluency of students with mild disabilities. The participants included three students in the fourth grade who were diagnosed with a Specific Learning Disability (SLD) or Emotional and/or Behavioral Disorder…

In this paper, we adopt Bernstein's notion of the pedagogic device to serve as a framework for explaining conflict and change in the field of literacy education across the past few decades, particularly in England, the USA and Australia. Following an overview of the pedagogic device and related constructs, we examine the relationship between the…

Many reading problems are caused by using the wrong teaching methods. This article advocates using a reading style inventory and matching the teaching method to the student's reading style. The author holds copyright to this article. (Contains 3 figures.)

This article examines how a second-grader demonstrates that reading is not about decoding letters and words in linear order but is a more complex activity involving the reader's decisions with respect to several aspects of their knowledge of their language and how comprehension is key to transacting with texts. The paper observes and documents the…

The aim of this study using a quasi-experimental design was to investigate whether utilising synthetic phonics in schools catering for low-income families in India would increase reading and spelling attainment in English. Over 500 children in 20 schools took part in the 6-month programme. Just over half of the children experienced lessons…

The authors examine the reassessments of the National Reading Panel (NRP) report (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000) by G. Camilli, S. Vargas, and M. Yurecko (2003); G. Camilli, P. M. Wolfe, and M. L. Smith (2006); and D. D. Hammill and H. L. Swanson (2006) that disagreed with the NRP on the magnitude of the effect of…